“But—he’s hardly in a position to give statements or answer questions. I mean he had a breakdown after it all happened.”

“Our new superintendent of CID feels differently.”

“Well he must be one stop closer to Dagenham than Neal.”

A wisp of a smile crossed his lips before he said, “I haven’t heard that one for a while.”

“I don’t claim to be original.”

“Oh I don’t know, from what I’ve heard you must be very original to carry all the warnings I’ve encountered about meeting you.”

“My reputation travels before me?”

“Indeed it does, especially for finding bent coppers.”

“I don’t go looking, they just cross my path at intervals.”

“So I heard.” He handed me a signed piece of paper. “This is a copy of your statement.” I took it and read it. “Have you anything to add?”

“I don’t think so, she called me asked me to hang on to Lizzie for her and that was it. I didn’t see her or speak to her again. I don’t know anything else except Neal tried to kill himself soon afterwards but we found him in time. He’s not been right since.”

“But you’re funding his bed at a private clinic.”

“He’s a colleague of mine, I fostered his younger sister after their mother died. So he feels almost like family. I’m also fostering his daughter until he’s well enough to do the job himself.”

“I believe you’ve adopted and fostered several children.”

“Is that a crime?”

He blushed, “Um—not as far as I know.”

“Look, I don’t know what happened to Gloria except she died by hanging, whether that was suicide or something else, I don’t know. I can’t believe Neal was involved.”

“Did you know he requested a blood sample for testing the baby’s parentage?”

“He what?”

“He requested a blood sample to check the paternity of the baby.”

“But that was him, surely?”

“I don’t know, the hospital didn’t do it due to the death of his wife.”

I slumped down in the chair and he sat opposite on the sofa. What was he saying, that Gloria killed herself because he questioned the paternity of the baby, or that he actually killed her? Either way I couldn’t believe he’d do it. “I’m not sure what you’re saying—are you accusing Neal of causing his wife’s death or of killing her?”

“No charges have been laid, but we are looking more at the possibility he drove her to suicide, knowing how vulnerable she was—which constitutes minimally manslaughter or even murder. To incite someone to harm someone or themselves receives the same sentence as the person who actually does the harm, even if that harm is suicide.”

“So the crime is incitement?”

“To cause harm, yes.”

“I didn’t even know such laws existed.”

“They do and I’m charged with enforcing them.”

“I still can’t believe that he did that or that Gloria gave him reason to question his daughter’s paternity.”

“I don’t know him so I don’t make assumptions, I work with facts.”

“So do I.”

“As a scientist?”

“Yes, you’ve obviously done your homework on me.”

“When you were described as the pension killer I thought I’d misheard them and assumed they meant passion killer.”

“So you saw my history and assumed I’d look like a man in drag?”

“I didn’t have a chance to think anything except to clarify what I’d heard and then I was told you were a rather attractive woman, so it was pension killer, and it related to some bent coppers getting their comeuppance, and one or two others who didn’t reach pensionable age.”

“I don’t think I can be held responsible for the death of any police officers.”

“No, but you do have a reputation for having police fatalities happen when you are around.”

“So how come you didn’t hand this down to a PC or even a sergeant?”

“I wanted to see if you lived up to your reputation.”

“Do I?”

“You’re certainly a very attractive woman.”

“For a man you mean?”

“Lady Cameron, I have no interest in your past unless it impinges upon this case, as far as I am concerned, you’re a woman and married to a peer who owns a bank. You’re also closely linked to the deceased and the accused in this case being a colleague of both and fostering their baby and his sister. You say you have nothing to add to your statement, but I’d be grateful if you do think of anything germane to this matter, if you’d let me know as quickly as possible.”

“If I do, which is most unlikely, I shall let you know.”

“Thank you, now might I speak with Phoebe?”

“She isn’t eighteen yet, isn’t she entitled to have someone sit in with her?”

“As she isn’t a suspect, if she requests support, then I have no objection if she wants someone with her providing they don’t interfere with my questions or her answers.”

I nodded and went to get her. She was slightly perplexed at being summoned to talk to the police but came along and asked me to stay. He asked her the same sort of questions as he’d asked me including reading her statement and commenting upon it. Like me, she couldn’t think of any further information. The inspector then left.

“You don’t think Neal drove her to do it, do you?”

“No, but then this paternity test stuff is something I knew nothing about.”

“Nor me, Mummy. What’s going to happen to him?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart, but I think I’d better speak to Simon and see what help we can offer him.”

“You mean like lawyers?”

“Exactly that.”

Simon agreed I could ask Jason to go and see Neal or get one of his colleagues to do so. When I called him, Jason was busy and up in London, but he’d get a colleague to stand in for him who’d ask all the right questions, including about his fitness to be interrogated by police. I left it to him to sort that out.

After getting the younger children to bed—they all wanted to know why Phoebe had to speak with the police—so I spun them a yarn. They’d possibly question it after a good sleep as the adults did before I got to my bed. They complained that I should have extracted more from the copper, I thought I did quite well already.

“They’ll be expecting you to send in a big shot lawyer like Jason, you realise that?” asked Stella after hearing what Phoebe and I had to say.

“Oh well, I’m glad to have met their expectations then.”

“Unless they think you’re in on it for the baby.”

“I don’t want any more babies.”

“Oh pity, I’ve got two you can have, they’re driving me nuts at the moment.” I shook my head, I thought she was joking, in fact, I was sure she was joking—wasn’t she?

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Comments

TWO HUNDRED dozen! OMG! And I've read every single one. It must be over three million words, too.
Congratulations, Angharad! Not only is it easily the longest novel (and it is a novel -- the daily "episodes" are one continuous story) ever written in English, it's actually readable, unlike that rubbish by L. Ron Hubbard, Samuel Richardson, and Madison Cooper.

Whenever you decide to hang a "The End" marker on it and start the next book, you can print off one copy on one of those infernal book-printing machines (probably in 20 or more volumes), and auction it off on Ebay. Follow the auction up with an electronic copy to the U.S. Library of Congress, whatever the British equivalent is, and a couple of book reviewers, and a little note to Guinness.

Ok, well yes, where is my thinking hat, or is that cap? Each episode is around 1700 words, and that times 2399 is 4,078,300 words. Hmmm lets see here. Assuming around 500 words per page and dividing that into 4,078,300 is 8,156.6 pages. Let's see here, so 8,156.6 divided by 300 pages for a novel is 27 novels and a pamphlet.

I think that is about twice the size of David Weber's, "Honor Harrington" series, or around or nearly as large as Anne MacCaffery's output.

I would like to see them done in an entire series of "dead tree". There will come a day when this series will be considered an epic, mark my words.

2400! What a nice milestone. I do love the cute little picture of the Dormouse and empty nut shells, along with your name and Bicycle now adorning the cover page. Nice and neat, all wrapped up in one cute little package.
As this Inspector now has Cathy all worked up regarding Neal, he should now take a step back, duck and take cover, as the explosions begin.

There is something very British about Angharad's Bike: maybe it is the awful puns “ ’Cos I’m so accommodating, does that make me an adjustable wench?” (Bike 693).

Because of that I like to imagine a shelf devoted to Easy As Falling Off A Bike in the old British Library round reading room where the like's of Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell, George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, H. G. Wells and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle worked and probably, dormouse-like, hibernated.

Others before have lauded your achievement and there is little I can add to their praises. Well done!!

When I joined BC I think there were less than 1000 episodes and so, with this tale obviously going to be ending soon, I shouldn't even consider going back to the beginning to learn the past. Stupid me!!!

Eventually I surrendered to my curiosity and read all from number 1 to whatever number in some 60 nights of intense burning of the midnight oil! Turned out that starting back at the beginning was the wise (insane?) thing to do. In a couple of nights, I was hooked and like the legions of faithful readers, I must turn in to EAFOAB on a daily basis.

This is truly an epic series of stories all tied to the numerous characters born of your fertile imagination. I think I remember at some point, there was a picture of a pile(s) of paper as high as the desk, next to which it sat, indicating what, in A4 or letter size paper, was the "hard copy" or dead tree output of your printer. And just to think that during this time there is also a library of other works that you have contributed to BC for the enjoyment of its readers. BRAVO!!

Thank you seems to be so inadequate to say to you for the hours of satisfaction I have enjoyed in following every one of your 24 hundred episodes. Your uncanny ability to tie this saga to the current events occurring on this little piece of rock hurtling around its sun, is marvellous to behold. The saga is always up to date!!

Thank you - thank you. May you continue only as long as you wish and I will hang in to the bitter end of either the expiry of the story or one of us. (My end is a lot closer than my beginning - I have been retired for about 15 years.)

congratulations Angharad, Bet you never thought when you started this wonderful story back in 2007 that you would pass that aforementioned figure and then some.... Only someone with a real talent for writing could hope to have kept the series both full of humour, cliffhangers, and real lovable characters that we could identify with, And yet still retain the freshness of the first episode... Thank you so much for all the time you must have spent over the last 7 years writing about the Camerons..